Owner of store where Alton Sterling was shot files lawsuit against BRPD

Author:
Wynton Yates

Published:
10:24 PM CDT July 11, 2016

Updated:
10:24 PM CDT July 11, 2016

BATON ROUGE – The owner of the store where Alton Sterling was fatally shot has filed a lawsuit Monday against BRPD.

Abdullah Muflahi, the 28-year-old owner of Triple S store, said he hasn’t been able to sleep since the night Sterling was shot and killed outside of his store.

Muflahi said right after the shooting, Baton Rouge police made him feel like he was the one who did something wrong.

Nearly a week ago, Muflahi thought he was helping by recording Sterling’s encounter with two officers from the Baton Rouge Police Department.

“I did not see any gun present until went inside his pocket to pull it out,” he recalled.

A lawsuit filed by Muflahi stated that immediately after killing Sterling, Officer Blane Salamoni, a four-year veteran of the police force, took Muflahi into custody, taking his cell phone. The suit further states Salamoni went into the food mart taking the entire surveillance footage.

"He was illegally detained in the back of a locked hot police car for 4 to 5 hours," said Joel Porter, Muflahi’s attorney.

Porter said after his client yelled at officers to get out of his store, they said they'd be back with a warrant, which Porter claimed they obtained after they'd already taken the surveillance footage.

"If the security system is concealed then how did Baton Rouge Police Department get the make, model, the name of the security system but for the fact that they did an illegal search before they obtained the warrant," Porter said.

WWL-TV reached out to BRPD about the lawsuit, however, a spokesperson said they do not comment about ongoing litigation.